A user may stop playing a video file in the course of his/her watching the video file. Later the user may wish to watch again the video file as from the part stopped. In this regard, there are two methods: one is to search for the stopped part by playing it at a double speed from the beginning of the file, and the other is to divide the entire video file by several pages, each having a predetermined volume to be selected. FIG. 1 is a view showing the former method according to the related art, and FIG. 2 is a view showing the latter method according to the related art.
In FIG. 1, an apparatus (not shown) to play a video file provides a first user interface 120 which includes a display area 125 and an information area 130 to display information on video clips selected in the display area. At this time, each of the video clips is extracted from each of the video files stored in a video data storage medium 100 such as a CD, a hard disk and a memory card. When the user selects a first video clip form the first user interface 120, a video file corresponding to the selected video clip is played. At this time, the apparatus can provide a second user interface 140 to play the video file, and the second user interface includes an area 145 to play a screen and an area 150 to perform a play control function.
In a user interface structure shown in FIG. 1, when the user plays and watches a video file to a predetermined part and then wishes to play again the video file from that part, the user has to select and search for the video file by repeating forward and backward operations from the beginning to that part. In such a method, it takes a long time to make a search, thereby causing an inconvenience. Especially, when searching for the end of the video file, or when the amount of video data is very large, it causes much inconvenience to the user.
Meanwhile, in FIG. 2, the video file is divided and stored by a predetermined size (for example, a volume of 5 minutes), so that the user can more rapidly search for his or her desired part. At this time, each of the divided parts is called a chapter and a screen composed of a number of chapters is called a page, for the sake of convenience.
In other words, since the video file is stored in the unit of chapter, it is possible to have access to a desired part more rapidly compared with the method shown in FIG. 1. However, when the amount of video data increases, the number of the chapters also increases, and accordingly the number of the pages increases. As a result, it takes much time to search for many pages and function keys or function buttons should be used several times when moving the pages, thereby causing inconvenience. Also, since the user has to use the method shown in FIG. 1 to search for a precise position even though the user approached to a desired chapter, the method shown in FIG. 2 is not considered to be an efficient video clip searching method.
On the other hand, in the case of a user interface provided from software for playing a video file provided by a personal computer, it is possible to search for a desired video clip, with ease, using a slide-bar. However, a technical idea of the present invention can be applied to a video file playing apparatus which is operated by a remote control device such as a remote control, or a video file playing apparatus in which the slide-bar or a scroll bar cannot be used.